


Myr, Slave to Shape

by Tikor



Category: Exalted
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2016-11-09
Packaged: 2018-08-30 00:45:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8512210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tikor/pseuds/Tikor
Summary: An Unshaped dies and a Queen of Rakshastan is born.





	

The Unshaped are, by nature, unpredictable. So mercurial are they that even the limitation of a single form, however mutable, is below them. So Indigo of the Unchecked March had found out during his Quest with his former Ring. His tragic Ring had tracked down the Unshaped known as Blade of Unmaking by the ravished, half-formed victims it had left in it's wake through the Deep Wyld. They saw these poor souls not as a warning to turn back but as a sign of great luck - it is the rare Unshaped that lingers so long at one stretch outside of Total Chaos. His Ring had hoped to track, fight, and win a portion of the great magic animating the Unshaped. All for the benefit of the Second Balorian Crusade. So empowered, Indigo could shape the politics of the entire court of Raksha into a saga of holy and righteous followers of Balor, at least long enough to make good on dissolving Creation back into the Wyld. Then they could move on to other stories, of course. 

Indigo had thought this was the story he and his Ring were crafting, anyway. His Ringmates had wanted fame or power or reputation or the experience to a greater degree than righteous duty but had followed him in his quest anyway. When the tracking ended and the Ring engaged with the Unshaped, the casualties were entirely one-sided. No form of the Unshaped fell under their storytelling; his former Ring members were lost to stories not their own one by one. Indigo had at the time thought their motivations impure, their reality unsteady, which is why they succumbed in the Shaping battle with the general/army/society/place that was Blade of Unmaking. At the time, Indigo had thought their loss would make the song of his triumph only the more glorious. He was again mistaken.

The only ones to hear Indigo, now of the Checked March, sing his tales are those reflections of Blade of Unmaking's self that mill about the waypoint that is its body. They are not fond of the exaggerated introductions he has fashioned as opening lyrics to his epic, introducing each of his Ring members as Balorian crusaders. They hardly pay attention to the interluding ballad devoted solely to Indigo of the Unchecked March. But, oh, do they stop their daily concerns and listen with rapt attention when Indigo of the Checked March sings the story of the battle where he lost his Ring and changed his name.

Singing daily to facets of the Unshaped in which he is chained, Indigo steadily loses his self to the binding intelligence of his prison. Every so often, one of Blade of Unmaking's faceless lieutenants calls him to the Shaping field for combat. Each time it is explained to him that if he wins the contest he will gain his freedom. The loss condition is never explained. But how could he, alone, triumph where his whole Ring had failed? He could not, and had lost four times already. Each loss had cost him a Grace; his Staff, Cup, Ring and Sword graces all belonged to the malevolent environment/populace/binding intelligence that is Blade of Unmaking. The ruling Unshaped had tried its stolen goods on for size, and had taken a liking to them. For each former piece of Indigo Blade of Unmaking attuned to, more of Indigo's relatively constant nature had been adopted. Many of the populace now carried ocarinas, Indigo's favorite instrument. After the loss of his Cup Grace, they began to sing, though they have no stories to tell besides the conquest of chaos sung with nonsense words in an inconsistent meter. After the loss of Indigo's Sword Grace, he'd been able to recognize every weapon he'd ever held carried by the phantoms/automatons/apparitions that kept him captive. 

Today, with only his Heart left to him, Indigo stands on the field defenseless. The lieutenant issues the same challenge, dangling the same carrot, and while it is still within Indigo's power to refuse, he sees no point in it. His chances of escape are remote. Though he might be Indigo of the Checked March now, to back down, to slink away would still be against his nature. So there he stands. Blade of Unmaking comes at him this time, not as a horde of hobgoblins or a behemoth of enormous girth or as the storm of razors that destroyed his Ringmates and humiliated him in single combat repeatedly, but as an ill-formed Fae. Of roughly human shape, it appears composed of quicksilver, slipping against itself. Its limits are undefined - where a leg should be one moment stands a cylinder of suspended silver liquid, and the next moment the same leg splashes to a puddle, spreading across the ground disconnected from the similarly mercurial torso. Another moment later the puddle stretches back up into a cone and reconnects to the being once again. Its head is like a fire assaulted by gusts of wind in random directions, veering off in each direction violently then reforming about the base with a wave. Each part of it reflects the madness of the Wyld; the reflections are just as likely to be consistent with the incoming light as they are the thoughts of the binding intelligence that is Blade of Unmaking. It approaches Indigo at a constant speed despite the improbable jerks of the liquid frame simulating walking. Within touching distance, the torso produces an arm-like appendage and reaches into Indigo's chest seizing his Heart Grace, ripping it out. How cold! 

Indigo thinks no more thoughts. Blade of Unmaking feels the power of the light-emitting Heart Grace in its quicksilver hand. At its whim, the body of Indigo of the Checked March takes a step to the left. The Blade of Unmaking wills Indigo's frame to lie down and rise back up. The quicksilver construct that holds the Heart Grace stays as motionless as it's formless body can, but the entire army/society within this artificial waypoint gives a synchronized contented chuckle, even the faceless lieutenant. 

The quicksilver construct pulls the radiant Heart Grace towards its torso for safe keeping. But when it enters its form, everything changes. A militant and hungry society had stood observing the contest, but suddenly they all scatter to attend tasks that need attention elsewhere. Several skip off playing ocarinas or twirling weapons that had touched Indigo of the Unchecked, then Checked March's hand. The lieutenant grows a face, but any further growth cannot be seen past the beginning stages as it is bathed in white light. In place of the environment Indigo had hoped to conquer but became his prison, in the travelling waypoint that defined Blade of Unmaking as much as anything, controlled by the threat of malevolence toward shape telling stories of twisting conquest is no more; a waypoint tainted by association with Creation fills the space. Now an endless plain of waist-high purple grasses and grains, grama and needlegrass, wheats, bamboos, and maize marches in concentric circles about a sole figure. Where once a quicksilver being held sway over all it could see, besides the occasional shaped interloper, now lay a being of one shape, one size, one mind. 

The Heart Grace of the Unshaped has changed places with the Heart Grace of the merely Raksha. Indigo of the Checked March has become a waypoint of Rakshastan's Middlemarches and Blade of Unmaking has been reborn as Myr, Slave to Shape. 

Myr had never been alone before. This stood out among all the sensations and states she had not yet taken for granted. Until a moment ago, Myr had never been anything so constrained. Myr recalls being both a place and a people and a mind that ran through both. Now she only had her own mind, and it with less than half the memories; those that remained are jumbled to near unrecognition. Myr stands up and lets forth a scream at the injustice of it all, and the howling wind of the plain answers with a scream of its own, echoing her rage. Myr finds this wholly inadequate. Once a thousand voices _and_ the wind _and_ the machines of war would dance at her thought. Behemoths who made craters with their hooves surrounded by hobgoblin armies spread farther than the keenest eye could see would bellow with her. The wind alone was a pale reflection. She will find replacements, she decides, and own their Heart Graces to restore the parts of her she has lost.

Thus, Myr, Slave to Shape, was inflicted upon Rakshastan.


End file.
